The Hague

The next stop on my journey was to the Hague a smaller city compared to Rotterdam or Amsterdam, but the home to the Dutch government, and the initial home of the Dutch royal family the Orange family. Its quite a beautiful city with the central area, and main building are built around a pound called the Hofvijver. If you ignore the outer ring of the city which isn't that scenic the inner quarter of the city surrounding the pond is amazing.

Now that I have the introduction out of the way I arrived in the city after an early morning train ride at 9 am. I took the 20 minute walk towards Standbeeld Haagse Harry in the Groke Markt. 

Harry is basically the people of the Hague making fun of themselves. 

Anyways the weather on this day was quite nice although a bit cold but it was do able as it wasn't much colder than what was going on back home. After I arrived at the statue I waited for my guide to arrive so walked around the Groke Markt to see a bit of what was going on. 

An hour after I arrived at 10 my tour guide arrived, Els a local who was incredibly kind and I think did a great job telling the three others on the tour and I about the city. 

We started our tour by walking towards the old district but first making a pit stop by the new church.

This church was built in 1656 and was one of the few things in the this district, which during World War Two was used as a Jewish sector by the Nazis, that wasn't destroyed during by both the Dutch and Nazis during and after the War. The Church was under construction so we weren't able to go into the church and see what was going on inside. The next stop on the tour was in that very Jewish sector right next to the new the church was a monument to the children, of the school that was there, who were sent to camps.

This monument was built in what would have been the park of this school with the names of the Jewish students who were killed by the Nazis during the second world war.

Next on my journey we walked closer to the center, where we stopped at one of the newer buildings in the city (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it). This was the build was where the filmed the opening scene of Oceans 12. The building itself many locals find to be very ugly and it kind of ruins the aesthetic of  city being an old town.

From there we went on to see the parliament office buildings

and a monument for the Netherlands constitution. The monument was a basically a place to sit and that is it. I kid you not the monument that the Dutch have created for their constitution is a glorified bench. Els commented on the fact that in many other countries they have created elaborate statues and ways of remembering there constitution and other important things from their countries history and the Dutch have a bench. Anyways as we made our final stop before arriving at the Hofvijer we stopped to see the worlds smallest park

its a park to attempt to remind people subtly about climate change and the drastic affects that I will have on the country of the Netherlands (being that the country is almost entirely under sea level has made most people in the Netherlands quite worried about clime change).

Finally after a few more unimportant stops that I don't really remember we arrived at the heart of the city the pond. This is where most of the cool buildings are and where I spent most of my time in the city as it was where the museums were and is was the most beautiful part of the city. 

The first thing that wasn't the pond that caught my attention was the statue above, it is the statue of King Willem I of Orange, the founder of the Netherlands and their first king. He's a pretty interesting guy, he was one of the main leaders in the revolution of the Northern Dutch States (Modern Day Netherlands against the Spanish/Austrian Empire under the Hapsburgs. So basically this guy helped lead a small nation that with no real history of military strength against at the time the most powerful country not only militarily but in almost every facet of society at that time in the Spanish Hapsburgs.

The next thing stop on the lake was a walk to the old hangman's square

This square is right next to the old the prison which is where I am going to take you next. This was separate from the tour from Els I stopped here separately later. Its called the Prison gate museum, this museum was also connected to an art museum called Prins Willem the V art Gallery.

Unfortunately the art gallery didn't allow pictures so I wasn't able to take anything for this or for my memory. But I know that the art was paints that had been bought by the Prince during the 18th century, at auctions and through commission. While the gallery didn't have all of the painting that he had it had most of them and then filled in the rest with pieces that fit into the era. This was the first museum that I went to on the day and it was in my opinion probably the best museum in the city center that I went to. The art was awesome and well I have always been a fan of older art because it is a great look into the history of that region and that time period. The paintings are also quite awe inspiring to thing that somehow someone painted such beautiful pieces.

Now that the Gallery is done on to the Prison Gate Museum, this is called the prison gate museum because it was literally built into the gate of the wall around the center. It was originally built in response to the government of the Netherlands forming and moving the political capital to the home city of the Hague. There was no prison in the city prior to this time and was needed to be built to house prisoners specifically for political prisoners. The prison was an interesting walk around it was interesting to look at the cells, specifically the poor prisoner housing cell. The cell was incredibly small for the number of prisoners that I would hold, it would hold about 15 prisoners, and was maybe 10 square feet. On top of the fact that it was small the cell was would have been freezing and dark as there was no light and the window was just bars nothing to keep the cold air out. The cell for the wealthy prisoners was basically a normal room, but you couldn't leave it during your wait for sentencing. That is one of the things that it is important to know about this prison and many other similarly aged prisons were that they were just holding cells and not used for punishment. the sentences would be done separately and holding people in cells wasn't a sentence almost ever. 

Now that the trip through the prison is over time to move across to the other side of the pond to see the working palace for the royal Dutch family. 

Compared to other palaces I have seen it is very calm and not super extravagant. The family doesn't really live there they mainly use it to entertain guest. 

The next stop was the Hague historical museum which was underwhelming and had nothing really of note out side of the dollhouses that they had in on the top floor. 

they maybe hard to see but I had to use my phone to take the picture because well I kind of broke the museum rules and took a picture.

Final stop along the way was the parliament building which is the a really cool looking building and used to be used by the royal family and be apart of the palace.

Now for some miscellaneous photos.

This is Johan von Oldenburg he is considered one of the founding fathers of the Dutch state. In fact he is considered the second founding father behind Willem of Orange.

The royal crest of Holland.

 all of the photos above are of different torture items that were used in the prison to coercive a confession out of the prisoner.

Final note Class started on Monday of the week that this came out so I'm not sure how long it will take me to get the next one out but the next post will be about my first stop on Liz and I's Scandinavian tour, Helsinki.